"I'm still working with Gavin" - Coco Gauff sheds light on why new serve coach Gavin MacMillan is absent at China Open

Tuesday, 23 September 2025 at 02:30

The Asian swing of the WTA season has kicked off, with fans eagerly awaiting the start of the popular China Open. Tennis prodigy Coco Gauff will looking to defend the title she won in Beijing last year, but will be without new serve coach Gavin MacMillan.

Gauff had been struggling with her serve for the last two seasons, leading the WTA in double faults each year. The top-ranked American parted ways with former coach Brad Gilbert prior to the 2025 US Open, with her serving issues becoming a major concern.

The Atlanta native began working with serve coach Gavin MacMillan a few days before the event. Although she lost to four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka in the round of 16, there was a marked improvement in her serve.

MacMillan had previously worked with World No.1 Aryna Sabalenka when the Belarusian was experiencing serve struggles. With Gauff competing in her first event since the US Open, there is hope that she has made even more progress in rectifying any biomechanical issues behind her serve.

Gauff will be without MacMillan in Beijing

The World No.3 will kick off her China Open campaign later this week. Having won the title at last year's edition, Gauff has a lot of points to defend before the end of the WTA season.

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Gauff admitted to being prepared to take on all challenges at the upcoming China Open. Furthermore, she disclosed whether her new serve coach had accompanied her to Beijing after their brief partnership in New York.

"I’m still working with Gavin, but he’s not here because we started last minute so he had other plans for this part of the year," revealed Gauff. "We’ll be working with each other right when I get home from here. But it was a good learning experience.
"For me it was a tough challenge I think mentally more so than anything just, like, kind of losing trust in a lot of things, trying to find that in that tournament. But I really do think that it gives me confidence for the future. I mean, second week kind of having some really low moments on court.
“So I’m looking forward to now feeling refreshed and happy, feeling like I can trust myself all over again and see how I do with this mindset."

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Arthur Ajayi

Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.

As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.

With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.

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